We are addressing the balance issues from the last version of comp mod while still providing a challenge for marines in div 3 so that they can get better and improve and learn how to play marine at a high level. Separate comp mods are out of the question.

@lemonsodaThere is no way for the competitive community of a game to thrive if the actual game only has 200-300 players. The only things that have changed over the years were:1 competitive players leaving the game over time (something you can't ever prevent from happening in a small game)2 UWE changing vanilla gameplay drastically so that it no longer made sense for the competitive community to stay close to vanilla at all. they forced our hand when they introduced those hitboxes, it changed the whole core of the game way too much and too far away from a high skill shooter, and too close to overwatch-like heavy teamplay focused zergingI dont want to write up a text defending last season's compmod though, apparently people see that as a failure or something.

The fact is though, as long as the playerbase of the game remains small, the comp community remains small as well.

Even IF, and that is a BIG IF, even if UWE and NSL were to work together from now on out, you know, designing future versions of the game together, making balance choices together, having comp mod as some kind of a testing ground for possible future changes, etc etc (which all in all is literally not going to happen because we've seen over the course of 6 years how much UWE values their competitive scene) ....even IF those things were to happen, it wouldnt realistically help the comp community much. EVEN IF this were to bring 50% of the current pub playerbase to the ensl, it wouldnt increase the count of high skill players.If there are any players with potential out there that are looking to play the game comptitively they'd probably already be here and play gathers every now and then.The actual problem is the tiny playerbase of the game and that's never going to change at this point, it's just too late.The comp community have done their part of the last few years trying to retain their own playerbase, up until now.In the light last season's failure, the current admin team want to try a different approach and put all their hope into UWE helping them out, sacrificing the current playerbase for it. That's my view on all of this anyway, I don't know what exactly the thoughts behind these decisions are...

also add researchable 20% acc aimbot to help out lower div marinesdoesnt even sound like a stupid idea compared to all the other things i've seen suggested so far

If you have watched yestrday div 3 finals it was one of the most entertaining matches I have seen in a long time. From what I have seen players who get into competitive 6v6 need a longer time to adjust to how marines play compared to alien but once they adjusted it seems quite balanced aswell. (even though not perfectly)

The real balance of the compmod beta can't be even seen yet since neither high or low skill team adjusted to compmod beta accordingly

Lemon - we know div 3 matches usually go alien sided, but the season comp mod seemed to be going alien sided in general.

The beta comp mod is trying to appeal to the average ns2 player/comp minded player. We hope it makes the game more fun, and yes we are addressing helping marines mid/late game. I think the medpack idea that we just introduced really could help the marines from having to deal with the alien snowball effect. Let's see it play out, the gathers have been a lot of fun. You are welcome to join.

- Our goal is to make gathers and the ns2 comp community less toxic and more inviting. The new Gather admin is very focused on that. So yes, perhaps this community has had that stigma over the years, but we are actively working to change that. I can't help change the opinions of people that want to focus on the negative, I have been trying to take an optimistic spin for years. It's easy to focus on the negatives, but the game is fun to play. Let's keep it going in a positive direction.

Changelog for the beta mod: Click Here I will also add it to the original post. So basically it's vanilla with those changes.

@lemonsodaEven IF, and that is a BIG IF, even if UWE and NSL were to work together from now on out, you know, designing future versions of the game together, making balance choices together, having comp mod as some kind of a testing ground for possible future changes, etc etc (which all in all is literally not going to happen because we've seen over the course of 6 years how much UWE values their competitive scene) ....even IF those things were to happen, it wouldnt realistically help the comp community much. EVEN IF this were to bring 50% of the current pub playerbase to the ensl, it wouldnt increase the count of high skill players.If there are any players with potential out there that are looking to play the game comptitively they'd probably already be here and play gathers every now and then.The actual problem is the tiny playerbase of the game and that's never going to change at this point, it's just too late.The comp community have done their part of the last few years trying to retain their own playerbase, up until now.In the light last season's failure, the current admin team want to try a different approach and put all their hope into UWE helping them out, sacrificing the current playerbase for it. That's my view on all of this anyway, I don't know what exactly the thoughts behind these decisions are...

My understanding is that the decision to go with these big-picture changes was made before any sort of cooperation with UWE ever came up. It would be *nice* if UWE cooperated with the competitive community, but I don't think anyone is putting their faith in the company to reinvigorate the comp scene.

You say that even if we were to bring 50% of pubbers into the nsl, that wouldn't increase the count of high skill players. That may be true, if you're defining high skill players as div 1 players, but who's to say you couldn't get plenty of new players at lower levels of skill. Wouldn't that still be a win for the comp scene?

I haven't been following the comp scene closely, but from what I've heard, and from the lack of gathers (and particularly invite gathers) played until recently, it seems that the current comp scene was dying - especially at the highest levels. So it seems to me you can either accept that the scene is in its death throes or take some drastic steps to try and recruit some new (though probably less skilled) blood. Given the small playerbase and the toxic reputation of the nsl, the chances of success are probably pretty slim, but isn't it still best to try?

While I enjoyed reading these thoughtfull posts I just want to chime in on something.The NSL being toxic and new players not being able to join. Just lol.

The state of the competitive scene has nothing to do with the scene being too toxic, Players just moved on.Pussies talking about our community having been too toxic should try out shit tier overwatch / cs / dota and they will see what toxicity is.

I joined when there were 60 teams or so EU / NA combined during S2, a part of luck was involved to be able to play the EU Open and the NS2WC lans, but what mostly made the difference was the countless hours of grinding, drilling, working on my aim and positioning.I didn't ask top players to hold my hand, I asked them to 1v1 me, destroy me and improve the player I was.

During the few years I played, countless times top players helped out lower div players to improve, you won't find that in CS or any "paid" competitive game.

People were not or are not more toxic than in any over competitive scene.

Post NS2WC most of the scene left the game , not just the top players, lower div players left too.The game is reaching the end of it's life, it allready lost most of it's player base and it has been showing in the team numbers since season 3. It's nothing new and it surely is not because "oh my god the scene is toxic waah waah wah" shut the fuck up.

If anything, the NSL team and all the people involved did an amazing job at keeping the comp scene alive.

with new players joining the comp scene the skill won't raise. It will most likely drop even. But you can't expect anyone who is new to competitive ns2 to perform at div 1 level. If more low skill players would join some of them would want to improve and eventuallly raise to being high skill players. (even if not on herakles level unforunately :( )

While I enjoyed reading these thoughtfull posts I just want to chime in on something.The NSL being toxic and new players not being able to join. Just lol.

The state of the competitive scene has nothing to do with the scene being too toxic, Players just moved on.Pussies talking about our community having been too toxic should try out shit tier overwatch / cs / dota and they will see what toxicity is.

Give me a break. It's not that new players *can't* join, it's that *some of them* are discouraged from doing so. Plenty of people have said this to me. It's obviously true.

herakles says

I joined when there were 60 teams or so EU / NA combined during S2, a part of luck was involved to be able to play the EU Open and the NS2WC lans, but what mostly made the difference was the countless hours of grinding, drilling, working on my aim and positioning.I didn't ask top players to hold my hand, I asked them to 1v1 me, destroy me and improve the player I was.

I'm not really sure what point you are trying to make here, but I don't think anyone is advocating for top players to "hold the hand" of the newer players, if that means going easy on them in game.

herakles says

People were not or are not more toxic than in any over competitive scene.

Post NS2WC most of the scene left the game , not just the top players, lower div players left too.The game is reaching the end of it's life, it allready lost most of it's player base and it has been showing in the team numbers since season 3. It's nothing new and it surely is not because "oh my god the scene is toxic waah waah wah" shut the fuck up.

I think it's a waste of time to focus on whether or not the nsl is a toxic community. What matters is that there is a widespread *perception* that the nsl is toxic among the wider ns2 community, and that this discourages some people from joining the comp scene. I don't understand how anyone could really deny that. Whether or not anything can be done to change that perception, or whether changing that perception will lead to new comp players at this point, are different and harder questions. You seem to think that changing the perception won't matter at this point. Maybe you're right, but in my opinion it still seems reasonable for y'all to try.

Give me a break. It's not that new players *can't* join, it's that *some of them* are discouraged from doing so. Plenty of people have said this to me. It's obviously true.

I think it's a waste of time to focus on whether or not the nsl is a toxic community. What matters is that there is a widespread *perception* that the nsl is toxic among the wider ns2 community, and that this discourages some people from joining the comp scene. I don't understand how anyone could really deny that. Whether or not anything can be done to change that perception, or whether changing that perception will lead to new comp players at this point, are different and harder questions. You seem to think that changing the perception won't matter at this point. Maybe you're right, but in my opinion it still seems reasonable for y'all to try.

People that CLAIM they "would like to check out comp ns2" but "would rather not" because they're afraid of "toxicity" are retards.There's literally no other way to put this, in all honesty. Impossible

Either you want to play a game competitively or you dont. Toxicity doesn't stop cs players from using soloqueue in the most toxic ranks, it doesn't stop dota players from playing the game at all (seriously i was fucking amazed by the level of toxicity when i first played dota a couple months ago).YOU give ME a break hobbes with your wannabe super understanding link between comp and pub community. People that get upset by words said by strangers on the internet don't belong on the internet, or at least don't belong in any place here that lets them interact with other people. They should stay away from ns2, cs, dota, roblox, or any other multiplayer game.

The pool of potential competitive players is exhausted, the ns2 playerBASE is not growing anymore. There IS no way of pulling more players from pubs into competitive, because those that remain just aren't made for it.

Unless of course you want a league to turn into a playground for kids. Then you might be able to recruit a couple more div 4 players. Will that really benefit a game competitively though?

Either you want to play a game competitively or you dont. Toxicity doesn't stop cs players from using soloqueue in the most toxic ranks, it doesn't stop dota players from playing the game at all (seriously i was fucking amazed by the level of toxicity when i first played dota a couple months ago).

You're just wrong. Toxicity stops *some percentage* of players from pursuing comp cs. But the remaining percentage is enough, given the large overall playerbase, to form a strong comp community. In the same way, some percentage of ns2 players are driven away given the (reputation of) toxicity. This is just obvious. I don't know why you are denying it, or getting so worked up about it.

BauerJankins says

YOU give ME a break hobbes with your wannabe super understanding link between comp and pub community. People that get upset by words said by strangers on the internet don't belong on the internet, or at least don't belong in any place here that lets them interact with other people. They should stay away from ns2, cs, dota, roblox, or any other multiplayer game.

I don't get why you are taking this so personally Bauer. I think everything I've said is just more or less common sense or blatantly obvious. My "wannabe super understanding link between comp and pub community" is just a matter of talking to people about whether they'd like to play comp ns2 and receiving the toxicity stuff as part of the response.

BauerJankins says

The pool of potential competitive players is exhausted, the ns2 playerBASE is not growing anymore. There IS no way of pulling more players from pubs into competitive, because those that remain just aren't made for it.

Well, you said it in bold so I guess it must be true (though it seems like you'd need a "super understanding link between comp and pub community" to be so confident...) I've been saying all along that the chances of getting many pubbers into comp at this point are probably pretty slim. For some reason, you seem to really want to disagree with me and say that there is *absolutely no chance* of getting *any* pubbers into comp. You are defending silly extremes just to disagree with me. I'm not sure why.

I'm not taking anything personal except for the part where someone just claims that the NSL is in any way unusually toxic because that's just bullshit. And has always been. An admin goes about making official statements about the community being too toxic, when there's been like 10 gathers this year.. lolThe people who say that wouldn't try comp either way, believe it or not. Literally what i said above. If they get upset at someone caring about the game and trying to win and telling them that they're bad because that's what they are, then they don't belong in a competitive community. There is no reason to try to force the matter.except when you want to make comp ns2 a 7v7 thing xd

You yourself might be living in a little bubble if you think ns2's comp community is toxic. It's fucking kindergarten compared to other games.Oh and i'm getting worked up about this because you claim you're a comp player when that's never really been true, you never really enjoyed playing this game at a decent level, or did you? From what i gathered in your time in s&d you've always been more focused on the people and playing together than on the game. You never REALLY wanted to play. or is that not true? Just making a bold claim here but im pretty confident that im right again.

Oh and yea your super condescending way of arguing might play into the fact that I'm still arguing with you, I hate watching people believe nonsense

also

Hobbeson says

For some reason, you seem to really want to disagree with me and say that there is *absolutely no chance* of getting *any* pubbers into comp. You are defending silly extremes just to disagree with me. I'm not sure why.

BauerJankins says

Unless of course you want a league to turn into a playground for kids. Then you might be able to recruit a couple more div 4 players. Will that really benefit a game competitively though?